Barney's Blog

More Ballmer Bashing

As mentioned above, there are rumors that employees walked out of the Microsoft annual employee meeting in droves. I'm surprised this is still just a rumor -- there were thousands of witnesses.

Whether true or not, there is an undercurrent of discontent in Redmond. Maybe employees are tired of all the bashing and are taking it too much to heart. Maybe folks are upset that the crazy stock options have gone the way of the dodo. And maybe there are legitimate concerns over the lack of innovation and the continuing quest to produce bloatier and bloatier hunks of software (Windows 7 isn't exactly svelte).

WinRumors did, however, repost a bunch of anonymous comments from Mini-Microsoft claiming that Ballmer is holding Microsoft back and that this meeting was the worst in recent Microsoft history (the 20,000 attendees couldn't even muster a decent round of applause).

Any Microsoft employees care to comment? We use first names only, so unless yours is incredibly unique, no one will know who you are. Shoot your thoughts to dbarney@redmondmag.com.